


Five Times Valentine's

by spacecapes



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff, Happy Ending, I promise, M/M, Okay Maybe A Bit More Angst Than I Had Planned, Swearing, Tiny Sprinkles Of Angst Later On, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29376192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacecapes/pseuds/spacecapes
Summary: Or: Five Times Dick and Jason Accidentally Spend Valentine’s Day Together (And One Time They Don’t) – but the version above rhymes, so.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 51
Kudos: 152





	1. The One Where They Watch A Movie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned: this is 100% self-indulgent JayDick fluff, in case the clichéd title/summary wasn’t indication enough, and I wasn’t particularly careful about canon timelines. I don’t even like Valentine’s Day as a holiday, never have, but I somehow liked the idea of Dick and Jason begrudgingly falling into a tradition of spending it together ;)
> 
> If anyone wants to know, I decided on a five-ish-year age difference between the boys for the purpose of this story, and for the first three parts, Jason is still underage – it’s all fairly PG except for a lot of swearing on Jason’s part, but I figured I should mention it just in case.

Jason clenched his jaw as soon as the Manor’s heavy oak doors fell shut behind him with a loud bang. He’d barely even set foot in the house, his coat half-unzipped, the backpack carrying his schoolbooks still slung over his shoulder, and he already wanted to turn around and leave. 

He could always tell when Dick was home.

It wasn’t just that his clothes were – as usual – strewn all over the entrance hall, or that his obnoxious laughter was echoing through the hallway; no, something _felt_ different whenever the other boy graced them with the questionable pleasure of his company. Fuck him if he’d ever admit it out loud, but Jason had long since realised that Dick was as much a fixture of this place as Bruce and Alfred were, and the way the very air in it seemed to shift in his presence was just another painful reminder of how Jason wasn’t, and perhaps never would be.

Swallowing the unwelcome but by now familiar feeling of inadequacy, Jason shucked off his coat and placed it on the wooden coat stand in the corner of the entrance hall. He gave one of Dick’s stray boots an angry kick before taking off his own, which he neatly arranged next to Bruce’s and Alfred’s shoes, like any normal person would. 

Resigning himself to his fate, Jason followed the sound of Dick’s laughter all the way to the lounge, where he found the other boy sprawled on the sofa, feet propped up on the coffee table and a ridiculously large box of chocolates in his lap. Really, Jason wasn’t sure what he was more repulsed by: the blue-and-yellow atrocity of a jumper that Dick was wearing, or the fact that he had somehow managed to cover himself and every other surface within reach in dark chocolate stains. 

As he watched the other boy laugh at whatever was happening on TV, open-mouthed and with his head thrown back, showing off the half-melted pieces of chocolate on his tongue, Jason fought the urge to roll his eyes. Had their connection amounted to anything other than both of them having been taken in by the same rich dude with a compulsion for turning strays into soldiers, he might have said something like, ‘How are we even related?’

Instead, he asked, “What are you doing here, Dickface?”

“Lovely to see you too, _Jaybird_ ,” Dick replied in a mock sweet tone, deliberately drawing out the nickname that he’d come up with a few months into their reluctant truce and that Jason had on more than one occasion told him he hated, “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m watching TV,” he shrugged, tearing his eyes away from the screen only to flash Jason a lopsided smile full of chocolate-covered teeth.

“No,” Jason said irritably, narrowing his eyes at Dick’s wilful obtuseness, “I meant, why the fuck are you at the Manor? Shouldn’t you be out breaking some misguided girl’s heart or whatever it is that you normally do on Valentine’s Day?” 

Granted, Jason didn’t know a lot about Dick’s life outside of his career as the first Robin – mostly because he didn’t give a damn, thank you very much – but he could count on one hand the times that Dick’s occasional visits to the Manor hadn’t involved him regaling them with a new tale of woe where his love life was concerned. Not that Jason had given much thought to what Dick fucking Grayson would be doing on national sucking-face day prior to this conversation, but him being on a date and well, _sucking face_ , had kind of seemed a foregone conclusion.

What he hadn’t expected was for Dick’s face to morph into the most pitiful kicked puppy look he’d ever had the displeasure to witness, an unmistakable sign that it was _him_ who had gotten his heart broken for a change. Jason didn’t bother hiding a smug grin at the realisation that Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne’s Golden Boy, the original Boy Wonder, had been rejected by someone he liked, and on Valentine’s Day of all days. Maybe this wasn’t the worst surprise to come home to, after all.

“Valentine’s Day is overrated,” Dick muttered dejectedly, averting his eyes as he saw realisation dawn on Jason’s face, and stuffed three pieces of chocolate in his mouth at once. And maybe, just maybe, Jason could admit that he felt a little bit sorry for him – not that that would stop him from metaphorically sticking his fingers into his rival’s wounded pride, but this uncharacteristic whiff of compassion of his had to count for something, right? Before he could open his mouth to, quite literally, add insult to injury, however, Dick decided to ruin his plans yet again by doing the expectedly unexpected.

“Come join me, and we can boycott this stupid holiday together?” the older boy asked with a genuine, open smile, vulnerable almost in its hopefulness, and patted the seat next to him.

“What makes you think I don’t have plans?” Jason taunted, sticking out his chin defiantly. He didn’t have any plans of course, he never did, but Dick couldn’t have known that, and the blatant assumption that Jason had nothing better to do than keeping his miserable ass company made his grudging sympathy for the other boy dwindle at a rapid pace. 

“Please, you’re what, twelve?” Dick snorted, directing a playful wink at him that left no doubt that he was perfectly aware not only of Jason’s actual age, but also of how much it got his heckles up when people patronised him because of it.

Besides, Jason hadn’t forgotten how Dick had, to everyone’s surprise, showed up on his birthday last year, a tiny cupcake in hand that barely fit the thirteen candles he had haphazardly stuck into it. The two of them hadn’t exactly been on the best of terms back then, still weren’t as far as Jason was concerned, but for some inexplicable reason the mutual and not-at-all-secret animosity they harboured for one another hadn’t stopped Dick from shuffling his feet, mumbling ‘Happy Birthday, Jay’, and handing over the poorly wrapped Superman shirt he’d bought him as a joke. 

Because that was just the kind of person Dick was, terrible sense of humour but a heart of gold – a combination that, as much as it made Jason want to hurl most days, also made it infuriatingly difficult to dislike the guy. 

“I’m 13,” Jason corrected, unable to resist rising to the bait, “And I’ll have you know I had plenty of offers, asshole,” he lied, not entirely sure why he bothered pretending that he had anyone in his life to spend Valentine’s Day with, or anyone with whom he would have _wanted_ to spend Valentine’s Day, for that matter. It wasn’t like he cared what Dick did or didn’t think about his pathetic excuse for a social life.

“Is that so?” Dick smirked, quirking one eyebrow in a way that all but screamed that he knew Jason was full of shit, “Then why are _you_ here?”

“B–because I don’t give a fuck about childish things like Valentine’s Day,” Jason spluttered, red splotches blossoming on his cheeks, “’Sides, I’m patrolling with Bruce later,” he added, watching a tiny flicker of irritation pass over Dick’s face. Jason taking over as Robin, and so soon after Bruce had, for all intents and purposes, dragged Dick from the Batcave kicking and screaming, was still a sore spot for his predecessor. And Jason was so not above using it to deflect from his own embarrassment at having been caught in a lie. 

He knew Dick was trying his hardest not to take his anger out on him, and some part of Jason respected him for that – even though he would never say so out loud. Still, he couldn’t exactly avoid overhearing Dick and Bruce’s shouting matches nearly every time the older boy came to visit, nor had he forgotten the resentment in Dick’s voice when he first accused Bruce of replacing him with the next best charity case he’d come across. Or the venom with which he sometimes spat Jason’s name, like saying it burnt his tongue. 

Which is why he hated Dick all the more for doing his best and, of late, more often than not succeeding to be mature about the whole thing. Like how he’d invited Jason to spend the day with him rather than letting him pick the fight they both knew they were itching for, or right now, how he visibly tried to shake himself out of his irritation at Jason’s deliberate jibe about going on patrol with Bruce. 

Jason watched as Dick’s facial expression turned from annoyance to exasperation to an unsettling display of fondness that he wasn’t willing to examine further because it made his skin crawl. And indeed, eventually, the older boy offered him a conciliatory smile and asked, “Well, then what’s the harm in watching a movie with me before you go out?”

Fucking typical.

So yeah, Jason mostly really hated Dick’s guts – but above all, he hated himself and his traitorous feet for moving of their own accord, so that before he even knew it, he had plopped down onto the sofa next to him in a clear and shameful admittance of defeat.

“Star Wars or Jurassic Park?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone else feel like Jason and Damian growing up together would have either ended in bloody murder or in the most wonderfully terrifying alliance in DC history?
> 
> I'm relatively new to this fandom so any and all feedback would be appreciated :)


	2. The One At The Hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the lovely feedback so far, it means the world <3 

Waking up to the beeping sound of a heart rate monitor was not how Dick had imagined spending Valentine’s Day this year. It was bad enough that Kori was off-planet and that Barbara was mad at him for _complaining_ to her about Kori being off-planet – and fair enough, asking your ex to be your Valentine because the alien princess you really wanted to spend the day with had decided to fly back to her home planet for the weekend hadn’t been Dick’s smartest move, he could admit that. 

Still, he was pretty sure Roy would have been up for some ‘Palentine’s Day’ shenanigans (that’s what he’d jokingly dubbed their not-date two years ago) and maybe even a casual hook-up, if Dick had played his cards right. They did that sometimes, when both of them were unattached; Roy was a good friend like that. 

But nope, Dick had just had to try and prove to the world that Nightwing was no less capable of keeping Bludhaven safe than Batman was of protecting Gotham, even when it involved taking on an entire gang of drug lords and their cousins and their cousin’s cousins all in one night. Because apparently, Dick was either just that stupid or that keen for Bruce’s approval; he wasn’t sure which would be worse. 

Needless to say, he’d gotten his ass handed to him, and it hadn’t been pretty. 

And wasn’t that ironic? Because here he was, with a stab wound in his abdomen that would have had him bleeding out in no time if Wally hadn’t been there to rush him to the hospital, and a sprained ankle that would take him out of commission for longer than either he or his city could afford. And all he had to show for it was a disappointed phone call from the very man he had so foolishly been trying to impress, as well as the throbbing headache that usually came with being kicked in the face by a mob of angry thugs.

He groaned in frustration, at the world and at Bruce, but mostly at himself, and flung one arm over his face with just a little too much force, wincing in pain as it collided with his broken nose.

“Smooth, Dick, real smooth,” Jason’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, and Dick removed his arm to turn and glare at his unexpected visitor. 

He was about to tell the younger boy to get lost if all he had come here for was to gloat, but his annoyance at Jason’s habitual smugness was momentarily appeased when a wrapped cheeseburger flew towards him and landed on the thin, white blanket covering his legs, “Thought maybe you could do with some real food.”

Dick scrambled to sit up, much less gracefully than he would have liked, and shot Jason a grateful smile as the smell of the greasy goodness on his lap flooded his nose. The two of them didn’t see each other very often, especially not now that Dick had moved to Bludhaven for good, but he liked to think that at some point over the past year, their rivalry had transformed into something closer to an acceptance, if not quite an appreciation of one another. It was small gestures like these that betrayed the cracks in Jason’s standoffish façade and gave Dick hope that maybe the other boy thought so, too.

“Oh my God, Jay, you’re an angel,” Dick groaned halfway through his first bite and he meant every word. He would never have the heart to tell Alfred this, but there were few things in life that Dick loved as much as cheeseburgers. Jason grimaced, whether at being called an angel or at Dick’s appalling table manners he didn’t know, but after the green goo he had been served for breakfast, Dick really didn’t have it in him to care. 

After taking a few bites that he swallowed almost without chewing, he noticed that Jason was still standing in the middle of the room, awkwardly, like he didn’t know what to do with himself now that he had exhausted any pretext he had had for his visit. It struck Dick then, all of a sudden, that the kid had sacrificed his Saturday to travel all the way to Bludhaven just to check up on him. He felt strangely warmed by the thought, and he was fairly certain that it wasn’t just due to the abundance of pain meds in his system.

“Sit,” Dick said in between bites, jerking his head towards the uncomfortable-looking chair next to his bed, and watched with an amused smile as Jason folded his scrawny body into it. He had grown a decent bit over the past year or so, thanks to puberty as well as Bruce’s training, and he was already taller than Dick himself had been at his age – not that Dick would ever tell him that. 

His raspy voice and his gangly arms and the ever-present scowl on his face, however, were all unbidden reminders of how _young_ Jason still was; too young to be spending his nights patrolling one of the most crime-ridden cities in America. Which was probably a little – okay, a _lot_ – hypocritical, coming from someone who had done the exact same thing at an earlier age than Jason was now, at an earlier age even than Jason had been when he’d first taken over as Robin. Still, sometimes, Dick felt weirdly protective of the other boy; it was a feeling that he didn’t really know what to do with, and another one of those things between the two of them that were better left unsaid.

“Did you bring me flowers, too?” Dick grinned at him mischievously after he had finished devouring the rest of his burger, ignoring the disgusted noise Jason made as he licked his fingers to get the last little bit of sauce off of them.

“Why would I bring you flowers?” Jason scrunched up his face in confusion.

“It’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Thought Valentine’s Day was overrated?” Jason retorted flatly, eyebrows raised as he repeated Dick’s words from last year back to him.

“Touché,” Dick huffed a warm laugh. He couldn’t deny that he felt a tiny bit touched that Jason remembered, or perhaps more so that Jason had let his guard down enough to let Dick _know_ that he remembered. Before he could say anything else, though, Jason leaned forward to peer at his face, wrinkling his nose in a strange mixture of sympathy and distaste. 

“’Sides, while I can’t think of a conceivable reason for anyone to want to be your Valentine, like, ever, you’d have to be stark raving mad considering all of… _this_ ,” he waved his hand at what Dick could only assume was a colourful mess of bruises on his face.

“And yet here you are!” Dick shot back, unable to keep his swollen lips from stretching into a goofy smile.

“Well, as your sort-of-brother I’m sort-of-obligated, so don’t flatter yourself, Dickface,” Jason murmured, eyes widening when he realised his slip-up.

Jason had never referred to Dick as his brother, not once, not even as a joke. If anything, he had always given off the impression of being offended by the very idea of them being related, by blood or otherwise, and the redness creeping up the younger boy’s neck told Dick that he had intended for it to stay that way. It also told Dick that he really, really, really should let this one go, contend himself with the warm and fuzzy feeling that Jason’s involuntary admission had left in his stomach, and move on.

But then again, he wouldn’t be Dick Grayson if he did.

“Don’t,” Jason warned, glaring daggers at Dick before he even had the chance to open his mouth because, by now, Jason clearly knew him well enough to have some idea of what was coming.

“You know what this calls for, right?” Dick waggled his eyebrows suggestively, revelling in the dawning horror on the younger boy’s face as he spread his arms wide and tried to envelop Jason in one of his trademark hugs.

Dick knew he was an excellent hugger, and anyone who claimed otherwise was a filthy liar, but he couldn’t say he was surprised when Jason scrambled out of the rickety chair, almost knocking it over in the process, before Dick had the chance to make good on his threat. Dick burst out laughing as he watched the other boy all but storm out of the room, middle fingers raised on either side of his retreating back, and didn’t stop until his bruised belly literally ached from it.

When Jason came back a little while later, balancing two cups of tea in one hand and clutching a book that he must have bought at the hospital gift shop in the other, Dick, in a rare bout of tactfulness, didn’t say another word about the incident. He simply watched as the other boy settled himself back into the chair, still glowering at Dick, and bit back an amused smile when his eyes fell on the title of the book. 

“‘Great Expectations’? Really?” Dick commented, raising his hands in mock surrender when Jason shot him another warning look, “Bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

“Shut up, Dick,” his sort-of-brother rolled his eyes but there was no heat behind his words, and Dick thought he might have even caught a glimpse of a smile. They spent the rest of the day in companionable silence, Jason reading and Dick drifting in and out of sleep, inexplicably happy that every time he woke up, the other boy was still right there next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s honestly so much fun writing these teenage versions of Dick and Jason, where you can already sort of tell who they will each grow up to be, but they’re not quite there yet, if that makes sense? At least that’s what I’m going for here.
> 
> Also, fun fact, I have never eaten a cheeseburger in my life, and I probably never will because the idea alone disgusts me, so don’t let it be said that all I ever do is project onto my characters, haha! 


	3. The One With The Literal Heart To Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo I had hoped to finish this by the time Valentine’s Day rolled around, but of course the perfectionist in me didn’t let that happen and made me obsess over the first three chapters instead of writing the next three… Oh well, I guess I’m halfway there.
> 
> Because today is actually Valentine’s Day, let me also just say real quick: don’t let societal expectations about some stupid consumerist invention get you down - celebrate yourself, if nothing else, you deserve it! <3 

It’s not like Jason hadn’t known that this sort of thing could happen. It’s not like he had any illusions about cosmic justice or guardian angels or whatever bullshit excuse helped other people sleep at night; Jason Todd had understood from a very young age that the universe didn’t give a damn if you were a good or a bad person, life could fuck over anyone, anytime, and in the end, it was all down to luck or the lack thereof.

Embracing the inevitability of tragedy on a theoretical level and watching Bane push Batman out of a not-quite-so-theoretical window were, however, two very different things, and Jason had to learn the hard way that the former had done nothing to prepare him for the latter.

He remembered hearing himself scream as he had tried and failed to grab Batman’s outstretched hand and, absurdly, amidst all the chaos and fear, his brain had registered that it was nothing like in any of his books: the scene hadn’t played out in slow motion and there had been no weird out-of-body experience where he could hear the scream before he realised it was his own voice; no, Jason had known before he opened his mouth that he was about to scream his lungs out, just like he had known how futile it was to do so. 

It had been the deafening silence afterwards that had propelled him into action, that had sent him running down what felt like a million flights of stairs, nearly tripping over his own feet before falling onto his knees next to Batman’s broken body on the concrete. Next thing he knew, Nightwing had arrived on the scene in a flurry of black and blue, pulling him into a fierce embrace while the flashing lights of the ambulances and police cars had danced around them. 

Everything after that had passed in a blur. 

Only now, as Jason was lying in bed, exhausted yet wide awake, did the rest of the night’s events slowly start coming back to him. He knew that someone, at some point, had removed Batman’s suit and cowl because he vaguely recalled Bruce’s unarmoured body being heaved onto a stretcher, ashen-faced and unresponsive. Someone must have done the same for him, too, because it had been Dick’s (Dick’s, not Nightwing’s) hand on his (Jason’s, not Robin’s) shoulder at the hospital when the doctors had recounted Bruce’s injuries to them. 

He had no recollection of _how_ he had ended up back in his bedroom at the Manor, save for an eerily distinct memory of the whiteness of Dick’s knuckles against the black leather seat of a car, his hand squeezing Jason’s so hard it had hurt. 

Bruce was going to be okay. The doctors had said as much, and while Jason could tell from the thin line of Alfred’s lips and Dick’s uncharacteristically quiet demeanour that it had been a close call, he also knew that neither of them would have kept their cool if there were any real chance of long-term damage. Which is why, by now, the suffocating panic Jason had experienced earlier had mostly been replaced by rage, first at himself for not doing anything to prevent Bruce’s fall, then at Bane and every other scumbag out there for threatening their lives on a daily basis – and finally, at Bruce himself for his antiquated moral code. 

Some part of Jason just couldn’t help but think that if they had dealt with Bane in a more permanent way the last time they had encountered him, then none of this would have happened. 

As it was, sleep continued to elude him, tossing and turning and staring at the blank ceiling of his room like it held all the answers to the questions he never dared to ask – which, of course, it didn’t. Groaning in frustration, he rolled over onto his stomach and grabbed his phone from the nightstand to check what time it was: 4:13 am, it said, in bright white letters. And right below, with an almost hysterical laugh, Jason spotted the date. 

February 14 – of fucking course, why wouldn’t it be?

Throwing off the covers because sleep was well and truly out of the question now, Jason got out of bed and ran a still shaky hand through his hair. Before he knew it, his bare feet were carrying him down the hallway and towards a part of the Manor that he usually avoided like the plague. Taking a deep breath, he figured, what the hell, it wasn’t like the night could get any worse than it already was, and moved to push open the door in front of him. 

“Dick?” he whispered into the darkness of Dick’s old bedroom, half-hoping that the other boy would be asleep.

“Jay? What’s up?” Dick replied groggily, like he had, in fact, only just woken up. 

For a second, Jason felt an irrational surge of anger at that – how could Dick possibly have fallen asleep after a night like this, when Bruce was in hospital, in a medically induced coma and with a million tubes sticking out of his battered body? But the fight left Jason almost as quickly as it had come when he reminded himself that Dick was juggling a day job on top of his nightly duties, and besides, this could hardly be the first time that the former Robin had seen Batman bruised beyond recognition. 

“Can’t sleep,” Jason murmured quietly, hating how fragile and scared his voice sounded, even to himself. He wasn’t a fucking kid anymore, but this whole thing sure as hell had him act like one and that made him feel all kinds of wrong. Even more so because Dick was there to witness it all.

Dick seemed to contemplate his admission for a moment, or maybe he was just still waking up, but after a bit of shuffling around, Jason heard him say, “C’mere.”

Sharing a bed with Dick was a terrible idea for more reasons than just how much it would hurt his pride in the morning, but right now, Jason was in no state of mind to refuse the comfort he so rarely let himself ask for. And yet, somehow, it was as if his feet were frozen in place as he watched Dick lift the covers in invitation, the pale moonlight drifting through the window just bright enough for Jason to make out the other boy’s tousled head of hair.

“C’mere, Little Wing,” Dick tried again, softer this time, and the infuriating nickname made something inside of Jason come undone.

“Don’t call me that,” he hissed, but climbed into bed next to Dick anyway, shuddering a little as Dick wrapped the blanket around him and pulled him close. Despite himself and his best worst intentions to not let their proximity get to him, Jason felt the tension drain from his body as soon as he relaxed into their awkward tangle of limbs, with Dick’s arms around him while his own rested uselessly at his side, his head tucked under the older boy’s chin.

“You okay?” Dick murmured eventually, nuzzling his hair.

“Yeah, just… couldn’t sleep.”

“Happens to the best of us,” Dick told him, stifling a yawn, and Jason knew that he wasn’t talking about his insomnia anymore but about his failure to protect Bruce. Part of him wanted to punch Dick for being a condescending asshole, because that’s what he was, but another part wanted to cling to his shirt and scream into his chest until there was nothing left to scream about. 

In the end, he did neither, for fear of pushing away the only person who, if Jason had bothered to explain, might have understood that tonight was a painful reminder that everything he had been given, undeserving as though he was of it, could be taken away in an instant.

“You know, this is starting to get a little pathetic, you and me having to spend Valentine’s Day together because we can’t get anyone to go out with us,” Dick joked after a while, sounding a bit more awake now, and Jason couldn’t help but huff a laugh. He was glad for the distraction, and, if he was being honest, even more so for the unspoken promise that Dick would still be there in the morning.

“Speak for yourself, I actually _have_ a date – but I guess now I’ll have to cancel because I can’t leave you to wallow in self-pity all by your lonesome,” Jason grumbled, and this time, it wasn’t even a lie. He did have a date, a pretty one, too, but any hopes he might have had of spending Valentine’s Day fooling around in the dimly lit back row of the cinema had gone out the window when… well, when Bruce had _literally_ gone out the window. 

“Thanks, Jay, your unwavering support means a lot,” the older boy chuckled, and Jason did his best to ignore how much he liked the sound of Dick’s laugh, or how nice it felt reverberating against his chest. 

“Which one of your girlfriends did you manage to piss off this time, Dickface?”

“Boyfriend, actually, but I doubt he’d appreciate me still calling him that,” Dick admitted sheepishly, and Jason’s brain short-circuited. 

Did he just say…? But that would mean…? 

And no no no no _hell no_ , that was a piece of information Jason did not fucking need in his life right now. For years, he had been perfectly happy telling himself that Dick Grayson was as straight as they came, end of story – and he had every reason to think so, too, the guy literally flaunted his incessant string of girlfriends every goddamn chance he got, without ever mentioning any boyfriends. Which meant that, until a moment ago, the stupid little crush Jason had been harbouring for his rival slash sort-of-brother slash whatever the fuck Dick was to him was of no consequence, because of the simple fact that Dick Wasn’t Into Guys. 

Of course there were a million other reasons for why it shouldn’t matter how Jason felt about Dick – like, oh right, the fact that they were sort of _related_ – but in some fucked up twist of fate, it had been Jason’s complete and utter conviction that Dick was straight that had formed some kind of wall inside of his head, a wall that had prevented his crush from developing into anything further. A wall that, he realised in growing horror, was beginning to crumble down at an alarming pace.

“He’ll be fine, Jay, don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” Dick whispered into his hair, seemingly interpreting Jason’s stunned silence as a sign of his concern for Bruce, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to correct him on that. He also wasn’t going to freak out over the fact that Dick had just called him pretty. 

“Try to get some sleep, yeah?” Dick murmured gently, and pressed a quick kiss to Jason’s temple before hugging him even closer into his chest. Jason could feel the steady rhythm of Dick’s heartbeat where their bodies were pressed together and prayed to all that was holy that the older boy wouldn’t notice how hard his own heart was hammering against his ribcage. He was so, _so_ fucked. 

Little did he know that none of that mattered, because the Joker would beat him to death with a crowbar a few months later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I put Bruce in the hospital just so I could come up with a halfway convincing reason for Jason and Dick to cuddle? Maybe. 
> 
> Do I feel at all sorry about that? Nope. 


	4. The One On The Rooftop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the wait, but what was meant to be as short and sweet as the other three chapters turned into something a bit longer, and a bit heavier? I guess it was to be expected, with Red Hood finally making an appearance…

“Bit late for a drink, don’t you think? Or early, I s’pose.”

Dick’s head snapped up from where he had been staring down at the shimmering city lights, muscles tensing reflexively at the unexpected sound of someone else’s voice right behind him – then, his brain caught up with his ears and a quiet curse slipped past his lips. He took another swig of beer without even bothering to turn around; voice modulators weren’t exactly an uncommon occurrence in Bludhaven, but he had no trouble placing the unique brand of arrogant rage lingering behind this one.

“Go away, Hood,” Dick rolled his eyes at no one in particular, still, somewhat childishly, refusing to turn around to acknowledge his unwanted visitor, “And please tell me you’re not here to commit a crime because I’m kind of off the clock – so if we could reschedule, that’d be grand,” he added and held out the beer bottle in his hand, spilling some of its contents as he waved it around to emphasise his point.

“Would’ve thought you’d be out on the prowl tonight, pretty boy,” Red Hood sneered as he walked up to where Dick was sitting on the roof of Forsyth Building, with his feet dangling off the ledge. With gritted teeth, Dick realised that the other man’s blatant dismissal of the implicit question in his words could only mean that whatever crime he had come here to commit was, in all likelihood, already well under way. Fan- _fucking_ -tastic, just what Dick needed to top off his train wreck of a night.

Looking up at the towering silhouette of the man now standing next to him, the rational part of Dick’s brain dimly registered that Red Hood was a ruthless killer, not a cut-and-dried villain but not exactly a vigilante either, and the ease with which the guy had managed to sneak up on him should have been more than a little concerning; the less rational and considerably more intoxicated part of his brain, however, didn’t have the energy to care. 

He hadn’t had all that much, really, this was only his third bottle of beer, but he just wasn’t used to it: Dick almost never drank, had never liked the taste or how it seemed to dull his senses, like it was doing right now. It made him feel exposed, vulnerable in a way he hadn’t since he was a child, and that alone should have been indication enough that getting drunk atop a tall building, straight after patrol and still in his Nightwing uniform, was a terrible idea. So was pissing off the Red Hood, but then again, Dick had never been one to make smart choices.

“Fuck off, I’m not in the mood for your bullshit today,” he muttered half-heartedly, and the words sounded wrong, even to himself; just like drinking, Dick didn’t usually swear that much either. It was just that Red Hood was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and Dick already didn’t much care for the guy at the best of times. 

It hadn’t taken long for Bruce to call on Dick for back-up when Red Hood had first emerged from the shadows and syndicated Gotham’s drug trade, and by now, the three of them had had their fair share of head-to-heads, chance ones as well as undeniably deliberate confrontations. It seemed that the man behind the mask, whoever he was, had made it his mission to piss off the Batman, and Dick could admit that the guy had style, although saying so to Bruce had been a mistake he was _not_ keen to repeat.

Still, it went without saying that he didn’t approve of his methods, and never would.

“And would that have anything to do with why you’re sitting on a rooftop getting pissed all by yourself, on Valentine’s Day?” Red Hood barrelled on, and Dick thought that maybe it was a good thing that he was in no state to fight, because he was pretty sure that right about now was when he would have started throwing punches.

“Yes,” he grumbled instead, one fist clenched at his side while the other gripped the beer bottle a little too tightly as he side-eyed the other man suspiciously. Red Hood had no right to stick his nose into Dick’s business, not after all the trouble he had caused for Bruce and the rest of them, but above all, he had no _reason_ to do so; as far as Dick knew, he had never shown any interest in Bludhaven, and even less so in him as a person. Whatever his motivations were for pretending otherwise, Dick couldn’t find it in himself to give a damn, not tonight. 

He sent a perfunctory prayer to a higher power he didn’t really believe in that the guy would just take the hint and leave, and groaned in frustration when, instead, Red Hood swung down onto the ledge next to him with much more grace than anyone of his stature should possess. Then, the other man had the audacity to lean over to steal one of Dick’s beers, and Dick shot him a look that he hoped, despite his mask, conveyed the appropriate level of ‘what the fuck’.

“If you’re waiting for me to ask you if you wanna talk about it, don’t hold your breath, Birdbrain.”

“Then why are you still here?” Dick bit back irritably, because the last thing he needed right now was being snarked at by one of the worryingly many maniacs who had it out for him and his family.

“Call it… morbid curiosity,” Red Hood shrugged, and Dick resisted the urge to roll his eyes again when he used one of his guns to open the beer bottle.

“Show-off.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Red Hood shot him an incredulous look, or what Dick supposed passed for one given the opaqueness of his helmet. He didn’t know why, but their easy back-and-forth suddenly gave him pause; there was something eerily familiar about Red Hood’s words or the way he said them, something that tugged at a distant memory, beckoning him, but just out of reach. 

Dick’s brain was still scrambling to fit the puzzle pieces together, only to find that a crucial one was missing, when Red Hood started to fiddle with something at the bottom of his helmet and the telltale hiss of the catch releasing brought him back to the present. He didn’t bother pretending not to stare when the other man lifted the helmet just enough to take a swig of beer, his exposed jawline sharp and strong. If he hadn’t been so tipsy, Dick might have felt ashamed for wondering whether the rest of his face was as attractive as its lower half suggested.

“I’m just not a big fan of Valentine’s Day, alright?” Dick relented after taking another long gulp of his own beer, although he had no clue where the sudden urge to share had come from. Miraculously, considering who had raised him for the better half of his life, Dick wasn’t opposed to the idea of talking about his problems per se, but he wasn’t so crazy as to want to confide in the Red Hood of all people – or at least he hadn’t thought he was.

At that, Red Hood snorted, “Sorry if I find that hard to believe – I hear the ladies dig the whole hero shtick.”

Something about the way he spat the word ‘hero’ made Dick’s ears perk up; it was hard to tell through the voice modulator, but it felt like, for the first time, the other man had unintentionally revealed an emotion other than anger and disdain. _Pain_ , Dick thought, he sounded _pained_ , and there it was again, that strange feeling that he was missing something. 

Dick himself was living proof that a painful past was no excuse for turning to a life of crime, nor even an explanation, but it added an unexpected layer of humanity to the hardhearted violence he had come to associate with the other man. Hard as he tried, Dick couldn’t stop the treacherous flicker of hope he felt at the realisation, hope that there was more to the Red Hood than met the eye, that he wasn’t beyond their reach, not yet.

“It’s not – it’s not that,” Dick shook his head, hating how the alcohol and the sudden and illogical connection he felt towards the other man had loosened his tongue, yet somehow unable to stop himself, “I, uh, I used to spend Valentine’s Days with my… with someone I cared about, like a brother. And he’s gone.”

For the briefest of moments, so brief in fact that Dick wasn’t sure if maybe he had just imagined it, Red Hood seemed to freeze; then, sharply, the other man turned his head away from the anguish that was no doubt bleeding through every line of Dick’s face. The abruptness of it all sent Dick reeling, wondering if maybe he had said too much, if maybe Red Hood had just been messing with him, if he hadn’t expected an honest answer at all. 

“How long?” Red Hood asked, his metallic voice thick with an emotion Dick couldn’t place, and he felt his shoulders relax a little at the unusual but not at all unwelcome directness of the question.

“About four years now,” Dick whispered, almost inaudibly. Well, three years and ten months, he amended, but who was counting? He let his head fall forward a little, for once grateful for the way his too long black hair obscured his face from view, and continued to pick at the label on the now empty bottle in his hand. 

It hurt to talk about Jason, but it felt so damn wrong that he never did. Dick understood that Bruce grieved for Jason in his own way – and grieve Bruce did, _deeply_ , he knew that better than anyone – but it had left a bitter taste in his mouth that the older man had tried to erase every trace of him from their lives. If it weren’t for his Robin uniform, in its pristine glass case at the centre of the Batcave, it would be as if Jason had never been there at all. Even the uniform, as twisted as it sounded, felt more like a reminder of Batman’s greatest failure than of the boy who had used to wear it. 

And that’s why Dick was sitting on a rooftop on a cold February night, drinking a brand of beer that wasn’t _his_ favourite, but had been someone else’s.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Red Hood lean back onto the heels of his gloved hands, tilting his head up towards the starless night sky. Dick could count on one hand the times that he had glimpsed a few forlorn stars above Bludhaven, there was just too much pollution. He still remembered how, as a child, he had marvelled at the stars whenever their travels with Haly’s Circus had taken them to a place where he could see millions upon millions of them; now, Dick was well and truly a city boy, and the artificial glow below his feet calmed him in its own way.

He glanced at Red Hood, wondering where the other man had grown up, and if the city lights made him feel anything at all. Perhaps sensing Dick’s eyes on him, Red Hood turned around to meet them, white lenses glowing in the dark, considering, calculating. Dick knew that the intensity of the other man’s stare should have unnerved him, as should the arsenal of weapons strapped to his body; for all he knew, the guy was mapping his uniform for future bullet entry points, and yet…

And yet, inexplicably, Dick felt safe in Red Hood’s presence, and it wasn’t the first time that he had thought so either. Without meaning to, he scooted closer towards the other man and leaned in a little, licking his lips, thrumming with anticipation. It was stupid, reckless even, to let his guard down as much as he had, but it felt as though the other man was about to share something with him, something that would warrant the blind trust that Dick had in him.

But the moment passed, as quickly as it had come. With a quick shake of his head, Red Hood averted his eyes and lifted his helmet, downing the rest of his beer in one go only to place the empty bottle between them like some sort of barrier; almost as if to say, ‘This far, and no further’. Leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees, and without so much as a glance at Dick, he asked, “So, what you’re telling me is that every V-Day for the past three years, you’ve been drowning your sorrows in alcohol on some rooftop rather than getting laid?”

And of course that’s what Red Hood would take away from his story. Dick couldn’t even bring himself to be annoyed; it was his own fault, after all, for choosing to pour his heart out to a murdering madman. Instead, he just scoffed and said, “What’s it to you?”

“That’s a yes, isn’t it? Wow, you’re even more pathetic than I thought you were.”

“Yeah, well, thanks, and fuck you, too,” Dick huffed, equal parts offended and amused. Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed another bottle of beer for himself and, before he could think better of it, held one out for Red Hood as well. The other man cocked his head to the side, like he was surprised that Dick would willingly offer him a reason to stay, but after a moment of hesitation, he accepted the bottle and wordlessly nodded his thanks.

For a while, the two of them drank their beers in silence, until Red Hood spoke again, “You two must have been close then.” 

Dick couldn’t for the life of him figure out why the other man just wouldn’t let it go; his ongoing failure to protect his loved ones hardly seemed like the kind of thing that Red Hood would be interested in. Unless, he guessed, this whole conversation was just an elaborate ploy to coax him into revealing something about himself that he wasn’t supposed to, or about Bruce. It’s what Tim would do, Dick couldn’t help but think, and so might he, if he were to find one of his enemies drunk and defenceless on an abandoned rooftop, but it didn’t fit Red Hood’s modus operandi.

Drowning out the warning voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Bruce’s, Dick figured that there was no harm in admitting what he was about to admit, and said, “Not as close as we should have been. I let him down when he needed me.”

At that, Red Hood hummed noncommittally, still staring into the night instead of at Dick, and not for the first time did he find himself wishing that the other man would take off his helmet – not only to find out who he was, but to be able to look him in the eyes and figure out what he was thinking.

“I don’t even think he liked me much,” Dick continued, unprompted, “Used to call me his ‘sort-of-brother’,” he chuckled a little at the memory, but there was no humour in it. He had thought the name cute, at the time, and since Jason and him weren’t related by blood, neither to each other nor to Bruce, sort-of-brother had… sort of fit. Now he wondered if maybe it was just another sign that he had never made enough of an effort to get to know the boy, if the name had been another way for Jason to keep Dick at arm’s length.

“I gotta say, it’s kind of messed up that you used to spend Valentine’s Day with someone you call your brother,” Red Hood remarked with forced nonchalance, but Dick could hear the challenge in his words loud and clear.

“Maybe,” Dick admitted, “But I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

He didn’t bother trying to explain that what Jason and he had had, what their shared experience of carrying the mantle of Robin had moulded their relationship into, was somehow less and somehow more than brotherhood, and somehow something different entirely. 

It’s not like Red Hood would understand. After all, how could he?

How could anyone?

Instead, Dick left the implications of his words hanging in the air, daring the other man to judge him, _them_ , his eyes hard and defiant beneath his mask. But Red Hood didn’t say another word, he just drank his beer and kept Dick company until the sun began to rise over the city; nothing more and nothing less. It wasn’t until a few days later that Dick thought to wonder why Red Hood’s first visit to Bludhaven had been on Valentine’s Day of all days.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s not what I had planned originally, but now I kind of like the idea of Jason taking a break from all of his resentment towards Bruce and Dick and everyone else that wronged him, just for one night, just to spend some time with someone he used to know.
> 
> Let me know what you think, I love hearing your thoughts! <3


End file.
